Shavua tov to all my fellow Breslev Israel fans and readers! I just wanted to thank Breslev Israel for the many inspiring articles and chizuk that have touched my life and I’m sure the lives of others. I thought it was very important to share with you something that my husband and myself experienced just recently, all thanks to the Rav Arush's and Rav Brody's teachings.

I would venture to say that the Rabbis of Breslev Israel themselves have no idea about how deep their influence is on other people’s lives. More specifically, Rabbi Brody’s article Birth Control Blues made a dramatic change in my marriage and in my life at a critical time.

The story goes like this: Thank G-d, I've had a home business which had been flourishing for the past three years or so. My second child was born three years ago (via c-section) and with a local rabbi's heter (Halachic dispensation), I took birth control for two years, not ready, physically or emotionally, to handle another pregnancy just yet. When two years were up last year, I told my husband that now would be the right time to stop taking birth control. I felt completely ready (from all aspects) for another child. My husband was very hesitant and said he wasn't up to it yet, claiming he didn't think he or I could manage with another one, the instability of a relatively new job (his) and the fact that he wanted some more time to just "breathe" without having to go thru the washer again of another c-section birth and sleepless nights and everything that comes along with it. We argued about it and we did get a heter to take contraceptives for another six months. Despite the local rabbi’s permission, I felt bad deep down because I felt ready and knew that G-d willing we could handle another child at this point in our lives. Telling myself the bare truth, thanks to everything I’ve read and learned on Breslev Israel, our only problem was that we just needed to work on our emuna. I continued to take birth control for another two months (in addition to the two years I had already taken it).

What's important to note here is that during those two months, my income from my business all but dried up and I was lucky to make a third of what I had been making previously. My husband got all the more nervous...

I decided to stop shopping for “heters” that only whitewash my weak emuna. I sent an email to Rabbi Arush asking for advice about whether to continue with the birth control, and he answered that hitbodedut was the answer. At the same time I was also going to ask the Rabbi Arush’s advice as to whether I should be doing more hishtadlut (effort) with my business (in other words, a little more advertising/marketing to generate some new clients even though I NEVER had to do any more advertising during those three years, after my initial advertising). but I decided, after reading all of Rav Arush's books, that it was not necessary, but rather emuna and hitbodedut was the answer.

So I prayed and asked Hashem to enlighten me as to these two issues I described above and lo and behold, Hashem showed me that the two were interconnected. My lack of income was a result of taking contraceptives not because I really needed them anymore (medically or mentally) but because we lacked emuna and had various excuses as to why "now" wasn't the right time to try for another child. I announced to my husband that the reason my portion of our income had dried up was due to our lack of emuna and, because we were cutting off the "tzinor shefa" – the pipe of abundance - with respect to children (again, we had a heter but being completely honest with myself, I knew it wasn't right anymore). In poetic justice, Hashem was cutting off the bracha of parnasa, the blessing of our income. I notified my husband that we were off birth control and promised him that he would see that as a result of our emuna. I just felt a million percent confident that Hashem would once again send us a blessing of a good income.

Sure enough, like pushing a button, no sooner had I gone to the mikvah that month than the calls from clients started rolling in again, and, B"H, since then, I've had so much work I haven't been able to catch my breath! No good news yet, but I pray and have emuna that Hashem will bless us soon with another child.

I once again thank Breslev Israel, Rabbi Arush, and Rabbi Brody for their teachings and advice . May Hashem send them infinite physical and spiritual blessings to continue spreading the light of Torah and Rav Nachman's teachings around the world, amen!